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Astro Teller, captain of moonshots at Google X, the search engine giant's innovation centre, challenged the creative industry to re-imagine its role in the world during a talk at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity on Tuesday. He encouraged attendees to think of themselves as "moonshot coaches" who use storytelling to inspire world-changing innovation.

A moonshot, Teller explained, is "a seemingly impossible and yet impossibly important idea that, through science, technology and creativity, can be brought to reality". And that is the purpose of Google X, which Teller described as a factory full of optimists focused on changing the world by seeking out massive unsolved problems.

Teller compared Google X, located near the company's main headquarters in Mountain View, California, to a Willy Wonka chocolate factory full of oompa loompas. "[It's] an incredible collection of Peter Pans with PhDs," Teller said. Moonshots already in development include self-driving cars, Google Glass and, most recently, high-altitude balloons with the potential to provide internet access to the 4.5 billion people in the world without it.

Making a moonshot is not for the short-sighted, Teller argued. It requires a huge (monolithic) problem and the scientific or technological means to solve it. Moonshots, he insisted, should make the world 10 times better. "If you're shooting to make the world 10% better, you're in a smartness contest with everyone else in the world – and you're going to lose. There are too many smart people in the world. Use creativity and storytelling as your main muscle instead of smartness."

In fact, Teller added, the story is the most important piece of the equation. Creative people should inspire co-workers and clients with stories that suggest anything is possible.

"Making a moonshot is almost more an exercise in creativity than it is in technology," Teller said. The story is the beacon that breathes life into a moonshot and determines its destiny. "The story you pick will define what they make and what impact it has on the world," Teller said. "It couldn't be more profound than that."

But he told his audience that the kind of storytelling required often isn't the type creatives generally employ. It's messier than making a racy video or an ad that sells a product. Instead, it requires the courage and curiosity to dig into the world of science and technology, areas that some creatives shy away from.

Stories, Teller added, that propel moonshots are "deep, hard, weird" and invite the world to come along for a long, strange trip whose success is not guaranteed. Most moonshots, he noted, fail. But to change the world, Teller pointed out, you need to at least try. Being a moonshot coach means convincing people to ignore the part of them that thinks changing the world is impossible.